Tanizaki Jun 'Ichiro's The Tattooer'

Power, domination, and gender have all been intertwined for years. Men historically have been in power in most civilizations while also dominating the women in order to keep this power. Women have often been viewed as the more delicate sex and were supposed to not worry their pretty little heads about men’s affairs such as politics, education, employment, estate upkeep, and generally everything that had to do with stepping a foot out the door of a house. In Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro’s piece “The Tattooer” he explores these stereotypes and women’s rise to power in society in a dark piece about a tattoo artist and a geisha, both going through a transformation that changes their very character by the end. By incorporating diction, symbolism, and foreshadowing; Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro paints a story portraying Japanese gender roles, domination, and power. In stereotypical Japanese culture, women were viewed as subservient to the men. They were made to be seen, not heard unless asked a direct question, and to tend the household and children,

Seikichi changes from a dominant male to a submissive one and this is completed when Jun’Ichiro ends the story with “her resplendently tattooed back caught a ray of sunlight and the spider was wreathed in flames (84).” Both of these were symbols describing the newly transformed woman. The fire meaning power, destruction, and sexuality while the spider was synonymous with the femme fatale character the geisha had become. The tattoo leaves the reader to wonder if the tattoo was just to describe the woman’s change or was it possibly a warning to all future lovers of this geisha? A warning of what she was capable of and who she was. She had ruined the tattoo artist as he had spent all of himself on this tattoo and she has the ability to ruin thousands of other